In Nairobi, plans to improve aid to exiled journalists

Kassahun Yilma left Ethiopia quickly in December 2009. He
didn't have time to save money for the journey, choose a place to go, arrange
housing or a job. He left his wife, his mother, his house and all his friends
behind. Yilma didn't know what lay ahead. He only knew that if he stayed, he
risked becoming a victim of a government-waged campaign against Addis Neger, the newspaper where he
worked as a reporter. "I ran away just
to save my life," says Yilma, "because I was in fear for it."

What he found has often been as difficult as what he left
behind. In the first months, he was preoccupied with the most basic needs of
survival: Shelter and food. Now, two years later, he worries about his job, and
his future. "You don't want to doubt yourself. You say, tomorrow, I'll be
successful in my profession," says Yilma, who continues to report for an online
version of Addis Neger. "But living
in Nairobi, you don't know what will happen tomorrow."

Hundreds of journalists worldwide have been forced
to leave their home countries to escape violence or persecution. Nowhere is
the problem more pronounced than in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, where
chaos, war, and the threat of jail have forced dozens of journalists to seek
refuge in neighboring countries. In the last decade, Ethiopia and Somalia have
forced out more journalists than even Iraq and Iran.

But journalists' problems don't end at the border.
Isolation, financial strain, and trauma can add to the pain of an arduous
resettlement process. Worldwide in the past decade, only around 22 percent of
exiled journalists find work in their profession, according to CPJ research.
And in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, few have been able to return to
their home countries.

CPJ's Journalist
Assistance program has provided help to more than 100 journalists in the
region in the past 18 months, to cover medical expenses and other urgent needs.
But sporadic grants aren't enough to sustain journalists over the long term.

With that in mind, CPJ in conjunction with the Rory Peck
Trust hosted a conference this week in Nairobi to improve assistance to the
region's journalists in exile. Around 50 participants, including
representatives of international and regional human rights advocacy
organizations, press freedom groups, and journalists in exile, gathered at the
Fairview Hotel to consider better strategies for emergency assistance.

Despite the entrenched problems in the region, there were
points of hope. One participant, Qaabata Boru, told of fleeing Ethiopia as a
journalism student in late 2004. More than six years later, he remains in northern
Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp, with little hope for resettlement. Still, he has
found a way to continue to practice journalism. Without pay, he works as
editor-in-chief of the Kakuma News Reflector, an online
publication that reports news from the refugee camp.

After three days of workshops and panels, participants
committed to working together to research and address ongoing needs in
emergency aid, medical and trauma assistance, legal help, and other challenges
of journalists' lives in exile. There are no easy answers. But participants
said they left with a renewed commitment to finding solutions.

On Wednesday, CPJ Chairman Sandra Mims Rowe told
participants that she believed the conference could be a first step in a
sustained collaboration on the ground between regional groups and international
organizations committed to improving opportunities for exiled journalists. "I
hope this can serve as a model," she said, "for CPJ's work in other regions."

For Yilma, the days of intense and focused work served
another purpose. It was a distraction. "This week, for once, I wasn't thinking
about my resettlement."

UPDATED: We've updated paragraph seven to reflect that Qaabata Boru left Ethiopia in 2004, not 2005.

Kristin Jones, a consultant to CPJ's Asia program, is an independent investigative reporter. In 2011, she was part of a team that won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for "Seeking Justice for Campus Rapes," a collaboration between NPR and the Center for Public Integrity. Jones was CPJ's senior Asia research associate until 2007. She led writing on the CPJ report "Falling Short," which documented press freedom abuses in China ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games.